IBM has introduced a new open source development tool called Quarks, designed for developers to create efficient applications based on IoT sensor data.

Although it’s based on IBM’s Streams product, a proprietary enterprise tool for processing large volumes of streaming data, it has been designed from the ground up to allow application development on top of connected devices.

Quarks seeks to ensure efficient and timely communication of data at the sensor level to other devices or humans.

This speed of connectivity is especially important in safety scenarios, where immediate detection of unsafe conditions could mean the difference between hazard avoidance and disaster.

IBM is looking to build a community of companies and developers to create solutions with Quarks.

The company’s goal is that over time, this open source community will grow and that Quarks becomes a standard method of building applications for IoT devices.

To help drive Quarks’ acceptance among the open source community, IBM has submitted a proposal to the Apache Foundation for Quarks to be an incubation project.